Venus Express Prepares for Orbit

With a 50 minute burn of its main engine, a wardrobe-sized probe will tomorrow morning swing into orbit around Venus, marking the beginning of a 486-day study of the planet.

Almost identical to Earth in size and density, Venus is one of the few planets where the Sun's radiation is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form.

But while Venus appears to be a promising haven for life, closer inspection reveals it to be an inhospitable rock with the worst global warming in the solar system raising surface temperatures to 500C.

Tomorrow's crucial manoeuvre will be initiated by commands sent from the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, and must work perfectly for the mission to be successful.

If the main engine burn goes according to plan, the probe, Venus Express, will loop around the planet's poles in a tight, elliptical orbit, bringing it to within 250 miles of the north pole. The orbit will allow scientists to take extremely detailed images of the planet's surface and more distant pictures encapsulating the entire southern hemisphere.